Wemark – Blockchain-Based Platform for Digital Content Distribution

Creators put a great effort into creating quality content that people are ready to pay for. High-quality content is never cheap. However, it can be copied many times with no incremental cost for each copy given to those who create it. For this reason, creators are always looking for ways to get their content promoted and distributed as widely as possible. Not only do they want to reach the maximum number of the subscriber for their content, they also want to earn the highest percentage of revenue. In reality, these objectives are very difficult to achieve. There are some barriers that individual photographers should deal with. Wemark tries to address the problems by providing some effective solutions that benefit not only photographers but the other parties involved such as consumers and even the marketplace.

[infobox style=”alert-success”]Problems Addressed by Wemark[/infobox]

There are copyright laws that regulate the content monetizing. In order to monetize the content, content creators have to license their work to customers. There are two ways to do it. First, they can directly license the work to the users or use agency and content marketplace to distribute the work. The second option is usually chosen since most individual photographers, especially beginners, lack the brand recognition. Therefore, it is difficult to reach customers directly without the intermediary of an agency.

Perhaps, on paper, it is already written and regulated that content creators have the rights to control their work and obtain full revenue of the content. In reality, it almost never happens. And these creators do not have another option because it is impossible for them to compete with large marketplaces and agencies. Even if they can, they have to spend large marketing budgets. In the customers’ side, it makes sense they will choose to buy content from large and respective agencies instead of buying it directly from the photographer who lacks recognition.

In addition to the distribution issue, another problem occurs from the content marketplace itself. Content marketplaces charge high distribution fees because they also need to pay the royalties to creators as well as earning a profit for themselves. Although creators are paid less than what they deserve, they keep relying on these marketplaces as they help them to reach a larger audience. Not only do creators sacrifice their royalties, they also lack of control over the content and the price.

[infobox style=”alert-success”]Solutions[/infobox]

As mentioned previously, the current system for digital content distribution disadvantage content creators. They are paid little and they have limited rights and control of their own creation. Of course this is not fair. Wemark offer some solutions to disrupt this unfair system. The solutions are based on some key principles. First, creators license their work to users directly. In this way they can have a full control over the content including controlling the prince. Second, distribution royalties are immutable. There will be a digital distribution contract in which content marketplace should sign. The contract regulates everything from deciding the price range, the amount of fee paid to the platform, the licensed issued to costumes, and others. After it is signed, the contract is immutable. It can be changed only when the platform, marketplaces, and creators agree.

The third principle is the referral programs that will enable both marketplaces and creators reach more number of audience. If the community shares the content to others users, they will get rewards. These referral programs benefit not only the users who share the content but also the marketplaces and creators and the contents will be widely spread to larger audiences.

[infobox style=”alert-success”]Token Sale Detail[/infobox]

Wemark created a dedicated token to fuel the digital content platform. It is WMK. The token later will be used as the key of payment system for the network. In addition, it will be utilized to incentivize the users for their contribution in creating, distributing, and sharing digital content.

There are 135,000,000 WMK tokens supplied in total. The whitelisting has started. The token sale will run from 24th July – 8th August 2018. There will be no more WMK tokens created. The unsold tokens will be burned.